Museums

Museums are special collections of artifacts, arts, sciences, and humanity's history and present culture.

They traditionally were housed in prominent National Institutions of Historical Significance,

but now most museums are also online and some new museums are "Virtual Museums" existing only online on the internet.

As a kid growing up in New York City I was very lucky to be able to visit many fantastic museums that opened doors and displays,

and movies and manuscripts, and history and cultures across our planet... up close and personal. Museums were not only fun to visit,

they were a vital part of my world and education.

At first this page with list museums without any organizing principle, just by my whim of thinking...

Eventually, we will establish some organization to the list, such as Countries, Cities, Themes, Specialties, etc.

First up is a cool San Francisco "Hands-On" Activity-Oriented Science and Arts Museum...

1. Exploratorium

http://www.exploratorium.edu/

2. Museum of Modern Art

http://www.moma.org/

The Sleeping Gypsy, a painting by Henri Rousseau (1897: Oil on Canvas: 51" x 6' 7", Purchased by Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in 1939

as a Gift to the Museum ), is one of my favorite all-time paintings and it is on permanent display at The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan (NYC)...

Because I always had a membership pass during my years in NYC, I would often drop in at the midtown Magic Place (MoMA)

in between other activities and destinations or with purpose, to sit with my "Friend": This Painting: actually 3 Friends:

The Sleeping Gypsy, The Peaceful Lion, and the Painter Magician: Henri Rousseau. This Painting is Spiritually Pivotal in my life...

I feel humbled by by its Majesty...and Heartfelt Gladness to know it... Allen.

3. The Morgan Library and Museum

http://www.themorgan.org/home.asp

This is one of my favorite New York City Museums...

It is located in the former residence of J.P. Morgan and houses his world class collection of arts and books (manuscripts, letters, documents, etc).

To be inside the splendor of this residence is to travel to a magical world of places and times, and to be able to see up-close and personal

actual hand-written and hand-drawn pages from some of the greatest artists and writers... well, it still boggles my mind... :-)

hand-written and hand-drawn pages by William Blake... viewing them as if the Man is sitting next to me... Phew...

4. The Google Art Project

a new online interactive website of various International Museums, highlighting their art collections and providing you with 3D Virtual tours inside their galleries.

This is the Future of Museums, Now... :-)

http://www.googleartproject.com/

5. The Brooklyn Museum

was my neighborhood museum... as a kid growing up... and now 50 years later, I receive their Blog in my email... and it is still Pure Magic...

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/

6. The American Museum of Natural History

This was the Famous "Dinosaur Museum" and still is, and this was my Planetarium with "outta-this-world" Star Shows and still is...

http://www.amnh.org/

7. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

http://www.metmuseum.org

One of the World's Greatest Museums: and it sometimes has current exhibition blogs, see for instance: "Guitar Heroes"

http://blog.metmuseum.org/guitarheroes/objects/

Collection of 16th Century to Current Legendary Italian Master Craftsman of Stringed Instruments

from Italy to New York: including over 50 stunning photographs with incredible close-up details of intricate mother-of-pearl inlaid designs etc.

and many accompanying audio tracks played by contemporary virtuoso guitarists on these historic musical instruments...

and it has the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/

and more and more...

8. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

http://www.lacma.org/art/collections.aspx

This museum website is not only a major California Art Museum, it is also now one of the best free online fully-digitized every-page

real-sized readable and viewable text and graphics of Rare Art Books Collections in the world...

Check out their "Reading Room Book Collections" of Historical Rare Books that up until now, was only available to a very select privileged group

of Professional Art Historians, Museum Curators, and Researchers...

Now "Anybody High School Student YOU" can sit down and read and view them too...

This is just the tip of the iceberg for what Google and Major World Universities and Libraries and Project Gutenberg etc. are beginning to do...

They are digitizing books and library collections to make freely available the Historical Knowledge Base of our Society...

Welcome to the New 21st Century on Earth... (obviously that number is a conventional arbitrarily measured point in Time...but it's what many of us

are accustomed to using... :-)

Allen